


Please Put Down Your Hands ('Cause I See You)

by violetsandbirches



Category: Emma (2020), Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Minor Anxiety, Wedding Night, historical detail, idealistic romance with realistic awkward moments, subplot: george would you just let your wife see your dick already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24634960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetsandbirches/pseuds/violetsandbirches
Summary: Emma & George Knightley have their wedding night, complete with sweetness & banter.
Relationships: George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse
Comments: 38
Kudos: 403





	Please Put Down Your Hands ('Cause I See You)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is an excerpt from the Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror".

It wasn’t until well into the evening on Emma’s wedding day that she began to feel a touch of nerves.

The day began as smoothly as she wished, her hair cooperating into perfect ringlets that framed her face and flattered her features, her wedding ensemble being precisely in fashion without veering into any of the trends Mrs. Elton favored. (She seemed to believe that having the latest, most avant-garde designs elevated her as the most fashionable gentlewoman in Highbury, a superlative which everyone else including Mr. Elton silently awarded to Emma instead.) 

But while she may have spared a thought for the woman while picking out her trousseau, that morning Emma only had thoughts for her Mr. Knightley. Every part of her toilette was done with him in mind––she chose rosewater as her perfume instead of Stephanotis, knowing he had more sentimental attachments to the former than the latter, and wore fingerless lace mitts instead of gloves so that she might better feel his hands on hers as they exchanged their rings. He hadn’t requested any of this effort from her. There would surely be time in their marriage for her own preferences to take priority over his––in fact she fully intended to wear Stephanotis behind her ears the very next morning––but today she wanted to be at her most beguiling, her most radiant for _him,_ for today was the day she would become his wife.

Accustomed as she was to adapting to others’ temperaments and charming any target she desired, it was no hardship for her to make herself incandescently beautiful to a man who already loved her so very much. When she entered the church Emma saw Mr. Knightley look to the back of the sanctuary where she stood, unable to stop himself from taking one quick glance at his bride. She felt a flutter in her stomach at the sight, not of nerves but of victorious love. He could not wait ten seconds for her to walk up the aisle to meet him, and the thought warmed her as nothing else ever had, except perhaps for when he slipped his hand into her own just moments later.

The day proceeded as idyllically as it began. Everyone was in their best looks, they all behaved charmingly, and there wasn’t a single long face to be seen, (although several people _did_ shed tears). Afterwards they all walked to Hartfield for the wedding breakfast. There were fresh rolls, roasted chicken, poached eggs and sauce, apples from Donwell’s orchards, bacon and ham, rich coffees and strong teas, fine chocolate, and the most delicious wedding cake Highbury had ever seen–– a three-tiered confectionary marvel, filled with dried plums and apples, spiced with cinnamon, and soaked in champagne before it was covered in pure white marzipan. Once everyone had eaten their fill and receded to their own homes, the day transitioned from one of novelty to one of familiarity. Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Mr. Woodhouse spent the rest of the day in each others’ company at Hartfield much as they had on many other days before. Emma and her father played backgammon, Mr. Knightley discussed business and literature with her father, Mr. Woodhouse ordered the servants about to move the screens for fear of chill drafts, and Emma played the piano strictly long enough for the men to compliment her playing and came back to the conversation as soon as she had accomplished her goal. Dinner was appropriately wholesome to help offset the distress the morning’s decadence had caused Mr. Woodhouse, and Doctor Perry even made his daily visit to Hartfield, conveniently occupying her father enough that he could say good-night to his daughter with equanimity.

Even as she retired for the evening, Emma felt no nerves. Her maid attended her as though it were any other night, undressing her mistress and putting her new gown into the closet with the rest of her clothes. The only difference in her evening toilette that day was the omission of tying curls into her hair. (She and Mr. Knightley hadn’t stolen many moments alone prior to this day, but during one such brief interlude he had tangled his fingers into the hair by her face as he kissed her tenderly. The sensation so pleased her that she wished to have the opportunity to reenact it tonight without the impediment of her curling rags. Her hair would hold today’s curls well enough to allow for her maid to arrange her hair into some other fashionable style tomorrow). A warming pan beneath the covers and deferential good-night and her maid left––Emma was alone.

She sat by her vanity, observing her face for some small change. After all, she was Mrs. George Knightley now, surely she should have something different in her countenance. She could clearly recall such a phenomenon occurring after her sister’s own wedding, and that of Mrs. Weston, and that of Harriet’s as well. The day before their weddings they looked much the same as they ever had, and yet afterwards there was always something different about them, some settledness in their features, as though something had shifted inside them. They were no longer unmarried women and never would be again, and each seemed ready to leave her old roles behind her and fully inhabit her new ones. Careful though she was in her self-analysis, Emma could detect no such change in her own features. She was no more or less beautiful, no more or less confident, no more or less settled than she had been that morning or the morning before.

It was this train of thought that caused the flutter of nerves to take root in her person. She had always had full confidence in her character and worth before the events of this past year, but her many missteps had made her aware of her flaws and the lengths to which she still had yet to mature. She was no child, but she was young and she had (recently) learned to embrace the changes in her friends and environment, and subsequently the changes in her own self. These changes did not alter her very character as she once may have feared, but simply revealed new stages of her growth, the way the fields of Donwell and Hartfield shifted and changed with the seasons. The idea that she may have stagnated despite this momentous event scared her.

So distracted was she that she nearly didn’t hear the knock on the door that connected her room and her husband’s. 

“Come in”, she called out.

The door opened and there he was, her Mr. Knightley. Her heart swelled at the sight of him and her contemplations were quite forgotten. Were it not for the location and his attire, she could almost imagine he was standing in the parlor door downstairs as he had been so many evenings before. But reality was far sweeter than memory, for he was in her room, wrapped in his banyan, and he would not be retreating to Donwell Abbey after Doctor Perry took his leave of Mr. Woodhouse––he would remain here with her through the night. The thought brought a smile to her face, and Mr. Knightley graced her with a smile of his own in return.

“Good evening, Mrs. Knightley”, he said, and Emma could feel a flush creeping into her cheeks. She sat up straighter and gave him an arch look.

“Good evening, sir; I trust your quarters are to your liking,” she asked as she gestured to the rest of her room. He laughed and she laughed in turn and the game was broken.

“You know full well they are; how could they not be when you are within them?”

He walked closer to where she sat at her vanity. How strange it was! After all these years to suddenly feel this pull towards each other, as if each had a lodestone resting beneath their ribs. No matter what the occasion, ever since they had confessed their love for each other she constantly felt the urge to draw closer to him, and she suspected (correctly) that he felt a similar urge to draw closer to her in turn. It was very strange and very wonderful.

“The adjoining room is also to my liking, dearest Emma.”

Emma smiled up at him and closed her eyes in bliss as he kissed her forehead. Of course they should be to his liking––for not a week after they had been engaged she had shown him the room that was to become his at Hartfield so that he might make any requests to change its furnishings before he moved in. He had not had the chance to see it since its refurbishing, and while Emma had full confidence she had fulfilled his requests, there was nothing so sweet as the confirmation, the validation of a job well done. And, she could admit to herself now, there was nothing sweeter than such validation coming from her severest and dearest critic, Mr. Knightley.

Suffused with the warm glow his praise provided she said, “Shall we retire, Mr. Knightley?”

His eyes first widened in shock at her bald suggestion before crinkling in gentle delight and nodded. Her quip earlier was not entirely made in jest––if he was amenable to the idea, she intended to have her husband in her rooms often enough that he would be sleeping in them more than he slept in his own. Although she knew nothing of desire satisfied, she understood the cravings of desire. Indeed, these past few weeks those longings had reached a fever pitch such that she thought it was a miracle of propriety that she hadn’t grabbed Mr. Knightley by the lapels and demanded he ravish her in the library during one of his visits to Hartfield.

(When Mr. Knightley, practical nearly to a fault, told her he would not do the fashionable thing and purchase a license to dispense with the reading of the banns she nearly despaired. Those three extra weeks! In fact they had a very lively argument over the decision, though Emma felt she disguised her more wanton motives on the matter admirably. In the end it worked out well, the additional time affording her the opportunity to commission a fine new dress from Ford’s for the ceremony as well as the originally planned new millinery.)

“I believe you are right, dear Emma; let us go to bed.”

“I am always right––what are you doing?” For her husband had begun to blow out some of the candles in the room.

“I thought…?”

Emma suppressed a smile from her lips, though her husband’s expression suggested she was doing a poor job of it. She was successful, however, in resisting the urge to tease him about preconceived notions about shy virginal maidens and how he might have come to those conclusions through previous experience. It was not unreasonable to presume that even so superior a gentleman as Mr. Knightley would have had some dalliances in his youth. She did not hold it against him––when he was of the young age during which he likely experienced such passions, she was far too young to have been an object of desire. And by the time she had reached an age when he might have noticed her as physically appealing, he had long resigned himself to a life as a bachelor. 

Instead of teasing him on the matter so that she might see that appealing blush overtake his features, she took a different tack and said, “I would like to look upon my husband tonight. Unless of course you do not wish me to do so, or do not wish to look upon your bride?” As she spoke she walked to the side of her bed and took off her dressing gown to hang it on the peg that hung there, leaving her only in her slippers and linen shift. She turned, ready to bask in the victory of once again shocking her husband with her forwardness. But she found herself pinned like a butterfly for display beneath his gaze. She’d had a sense of his own desire for her during stolen kisses and fleeting touches, but not until this moment had she realized the extent to which he had restrained himself during such encounters.

In a low, rich tone he said, “I should like it very much to look upon my bride, if she consents to it”.

Emma found she could not speak and nodded, licking her lips. His eyes were heated beyond measure, sliding from her face to her slender ankles, the silhouette of her legs and the shadow of her nipples beneath the thin cloth. A fanciful part of her mind thought she might die if he did not touch her soon, and with relief she let out a breath she’d been unaware of holding as he slowly walked over to her.

Still slowly, (tantalizingly slowly!), he unwrapped his banyan and placed it on the peg next to her dressing gown. She did not know if her gaze was as heated as Mr. Knightley’s as her eyes roved over his form, almost but not quite bare in a night shirt similar to her own. She catalogued each new treasure she was privileged to witness: the downy golden hair on his chest, the unbroken line of his beautiful neck, his muscled thighs, even the visible beginnings of arousal at his groin. She took all of him in at leisure, unashamed, and when she raised her eyes back to his own she had her answer––her gaze was precisely as warm as his own, each of their passions reflecting back at each other. 

It felt as though they were trapped in amber, a timeless golden bubble. She could feel the tension between them, their love for each other nearly made tangible, both of them eager to begin but wanting to savor the experience. There would only be one “first time”. And so the moment stretched and stretched, until Emma took control, as she was wont to do. After all, she reasoned to herself, there would only be one “second time” as well. They had the rest of their lives to explore every variation of lovemaking, but they would never get the chance if they didn’t begin now.

“George”, she said, “I am ready.”

No sooner had the words fallen from her lips before his mouth replaced them. Her eyes fell shut and she lost herself to the experience. Their previous stolen kisses seemed a pale shadow of this kiss. Or perhaps pieces of a puzzle that were only now being assembled as a whole. George’s warm hand came to rest on her cheek and slip further into her hair as his other grabbed her waist and pulled her closer to him. She might have startled at the suddenness of his action if she weren’t equally set on the task of removing the distance between them. Her own small hands found their way to his shoulder blades, gently scratching his back from atop his nightshirt.

Even as she curled her fingers into his back George’s tongue licked apart her lips and into her mouth. Emma gasped and she could feel him smile through his ministrations. She immediately scratched him harder in retaliation, but let her own tongue continue to move against his. It was a new and delightful sensation that she had only experienced once before. During their last stolen privacy before the wedding he had slipped his tongue into her mouth for an instant. She had gasped in delight then too, but he must have mistaken it for maidenly shock and desisted at once. Before she could correct his assumption they had heard Mrs. Weston calling for them and the moment was broken.

This time there was no one to interrupt them, no need to hide away. She felt no shame when she let the tip of her tongue trace the roof of his mouth, and no shyness when he licked the underside of her tongue, only pleasure. And the pleasure steadily increased as George’s mouth moved away from hers only to kiss at her jaw and down her throat. She sighed and tilted her head back so her husband might have better access to the length of her neck. His kisses were so sweet, so gentle.

“More, George”, she said.

No sooner had she said it than she felt him begin to let his teeth scrape against her skin, letting himself suck bruising kisses and soothe them with puppyish licks. If only he always complied with her orders so easily! Eventually his mouth returned to hers and they continued their earlier kisses, and Emma stood up on tiptoe, so desperate was she to consume her husband, her Knightley.

As he pulled away to catch his breath George happened to glance down and gave a small, huffing laugh.

“You are still in your slippers,” he whispered. Emma shrugged and wiggled her toes.

“So I am.”

“Sit”, he said, and he toed off his own slippers and knelt down on the floor. Emma felt the urge to be contrary, but sat down all the same; after all, she supposed they had to come off eventually, probably before her nightgown anyway.

Though a landed gentleman, George had slight calluses on his hands from all his time outside, and they scraped against her skin as he gently removed her slippers, tracing along her instep with his thumb. Had the arch of her foot always been so sensitive? Surely not, and yet the sensation of his warm, broad hands against her slender ankles was delicious. The only thing spoiling it was that her husband’s head was bent down and she could not see his face.

Emma reached down and sank her fingers into his sideburns to tilt his head back up towards her. As she stroked her thumbs along his jaw she could almost swear he was purring like a tomcat, eyes dark and hooded so that she could barely see the blue in them. He turned his head to kiss the palm of one hand, then her wrist. At the same time his hands slid up to her calves, then her knees, beginning to part her legs as he placed a kiss against the inside of one knee, her shift rising with every motion.

“George”, Emma quickly spoke. He immediately paused in his actions.

“Yes, love?” It was difficult not to melt at the pet name that so easily fell from his lips, but Emma pressed on.

“What are you doing?”

“I...I would like to give you a, a kind of kiss––” He confirmed her deductions, her marriage companion being one of the few books she read thoroughly and repeatedly.

“But your knees will ache after being on the floor for so long!”

George did not frown at her indirect reference to his age, nor did he comply and get up off the ground. Instead he smiled at her with an irrepressible fondness, and reached one hand behind him to grab at the back of his collar and he pulled off his nightshirt in one swift motion. Emma felt her mouth drop open, and was so nearly blinded by the new expanse of skin that she almost missed him roughly folding the linen shirt into halves, then quarters, and placing the bundle beneath his knees.

“There, that will do for what I have planned.”

Emma was too distracted her husband’s body, (noting with delight the flexing of his arms, the breadth of his shoulders, his trim waist––to her dismay she could not get a better view at his arousal, somewhat shadowed as it was by his legs), that she did not notice George’s amusement and patience with her frank appraisal.

She did manage to drag her eyes away long enough to give him an arch look, saying, “You could have just used one of the cushions from the bed.” George scoffed but did not cease his smile.

“Would you have suffered having your fine pillow back on the bed after it was crushed into the floorboards?”

Emma opened her mouth to retaliate before she closed it, realizing she did not have a ready rebuttal. True, the servants regularly cleaned her room, but when she thought about how often people’s shoes trampled all through her chambers, she really couldn’t––

She was startled out of her contemplation by another kiss, this time low on one inner thigh. 

“May I continue, dear Emma,” he asked. 

She huffed and feigned haughty indifference, saying, “Oh, if you must!”

As much as they both enjoyed their playful tête-á-têtes, he delayed no more and continued kissing his way up her thighs. He was just as thorough in his attentions to them as he had been to her neck, alternating sweet nips and kisses, sucking bruises into her legs and laving over the blooming marks with his tongue. By the time her shift was shoved up past her hip bones she was squirming in anticipation.

George briefly stopped to marvel at the newest parts of her exposed to his sight. A small part of Emma had been somewhat anxious that she would be pleasing to him. She knew her face and her figure to be unequivocally beautiful, but had read that there was a wide variety in the appearances of women’s nether regions, and a wide variety of men’s preferences on the matter. She wondered if he found her pubic hair to be too unruly or too sparse, if he looked at the lips of her vulva and was reminded of the orchids in a hothouse or a rumple of pink ribbon. But one look at his face and she knew she needn’t have worried. His expression was one of awe and delight. 

He lowered his head so that his nose was nuzzled against her curls, his mouth inches away from her most private place. He breathed in the scent of her, his exhaling breath tickled cool against her wet lips, and then he began to lick.

Oh! Emma had tried, fumbling, to touch herself in the past. It felt well enough, helping to take the edge off of her arousal when it proved distracting. But this––this was something different altogether. Her husband’s touch was so gentle, his tongue so soft, that her previous attempts seemed like graceless pawing in comparison. No detail was below his notice, and together they learned her body. He discovered that her labia were particularly sensitive and he took his time sucking each one in its turn into his mouth, tracing them with his tongue. They learned that she did not care for light upward strokes over the exposed head of her clitoris, but she loved strong, slow downward strokes over its hood. As George slowly worked one, then two fingers into her depths he learned that she enjoyed them thrusting in and out quite well, but if he kept them buried in her to the hilt, using strong pressure to rub at a spot on the anterior side, she would arch her back and bite her lip to try and stifle her breathy gasps.

Emma looked down at him, and as though he sensed her gaze he looked back up. She felt her cheeks flush with heat. There was something so very delicious, almost dirty about looking each other in the eye as he performed this act for his wife. She could _see_ his mouth slick with her wetness where before she had only felt it, she could _see_ his shadowed hand shifting as his fingers curled inside her, she could _see_ so superior and fine a gentleman as George Knightley on his knees before her, unclothed, wholly absorbed with providing her pleasure regardless of how the act might debase him. Emma had spent her entire life of a lower esteem in relation to Mr. Knightley simply due to their ages and her sex. To have him do this for her and in this moment completely yield his rank and pride to her, to have her severest critic with his head buried between her legs––

A ragged moan tore itself from her throat as she fisted the sheets of her bed beneath one hand. George echoed her moan, the vibration buzzing against her and intensifying everything to a fever pitch. Almost against her will Emma felt her thighs clench closer together, squeezing against her husband’s head like a vice. She felt herself twitching, practically thrashing as her pleasure overtook her from the soles of her feet to top of her spine, mewling and moaning in ecstasy. George did not stop but merely slowed, dragging out her climax as much as he could, one strong arm braced over her hips to hold her still. Eventually Emma gave his head a limp shove and flopped back into a boneless heap atop her covers.

 _I ought to write whoever George’s past paramours were a thank-you note,_ she thought half-deliriously. Somewhere on the floor she was aware of George getting up and stretching his legs. The bed shifted beneath his weight as he sat next to her and brushed strands of hair off her face. Emma smiled up at him and gestured for him to lean down and give her a kiss.

“Oh!” Her nose wrinkled at the flavor of herself on her husband’s mouth. Was that really what she tasted like? Somewhere between sour and savory, and slightly salty too?

“Sorry, I ought to have warned you.”

He cast about for something with which to wipe his face and was about to walk over to the wash basin when he felt Emma’s hand pull him back. He sat down as she took the skirt of her shift and dabbed her essence off of his face.

“There: now we have both ruined our nightshirts.”

George looked at her like she was the sun. He rested his forehead against hers, letting their breaths intermingle before Emma leaned forward to kiss him again. It was not nearly so bad once she knew what to expect and braced herself accordingly. Still not pleasant, but neither was it exactly unpleasant. And with each moment the taste was dissipating. She was not quite certain if she would ever accustom herself to it or not, but only time would tell.

All the same, as he drew back George took one look at her face and knew her mind at once. With one more kiss to her forehead he got up and walked to the washbasin. Unfortunately he was facing away from her as he picked up a cloth, so she _still_ couldn’t get a proper view of his arousal. Emma contented herself with admiring the curve of his arse instead. She gave her lips an absentminded lick and wrinkled her nose again.

“Now I have yet more proof of how much you love me,” she said. As she spoke she wiped at her own face with the skirt of her night shift, and still feeling rosy and overwarm, took it off completely, using another part to gently dab at the sweat at the back of her neck.

“I would be happy to prove it to you as often as you wish if that is now a preferred method,” he said.

He had finished cleaning himself and swishing water through his mouth, and turned his head to face her. Emma had secretly hoped to shock him again with her nudity, (it was proving to be a delightful pastime), but George walked over and kissed her soundly. This time no hint of her remained on his tongue and Emma reciprocated with full enthusiasm. She made a sound of protest as he broke away, but George sat back entirely, viewing her body with hungry eyes and Emma realized she could (at last!) see _all_ of her husband. He looked much the same as the illustrations she had seen, but seeing her husband’s penis erect and flushed and _ready_ elicited very different feelings than looking at an impersonal diagram. George seemed to be similarly entranced by her own body, cataloging the slight swell of her breasts, the brownish-pink tone of her peaked nipples, the mole next to her navel.

“Next time I sup at your quim I should have you above me, so I might better look at my wife as I pleasure her.”

Emma’s mind cycled at speed through several different thoughts–– how pleased she was that her husband found her body attractive, how wonderful it would be to feel such sensations again, how her marriage companion had not mentioned such a position and she wasn’t sure how it would work, eventually settling on magnanimity:

“You do not have to make such a sacrifice again anytime soon.”

He ceased his survey of her body and looked at her with a soft concern in his eyes.

“Did you not like it? I thought you had, but you never have to endure anything you do not wish to in our marriage bed, Emma.”

“Oh, you are correct, I did like it. Very much, in fact”, and George gave her such a devilish look that she had to look away for a moment. “It is for your sake that I say it. You say I do not have to endure anything less than pleasant in the marriage bed, and I say you should not have to make any sacrifices on my account either. For I cannot imagine you would want the full force of such a flavor on your tongue very often.”

He frowned.

“Emma, I would not do anything I did not truly wish to, even for you. True, there is some sacrifice within marriage, but putting my mouth upon you was no such thing. Have I ever withheld my true opinion from you?”

“No, but––”

“Then there is your answer.”

“I should have known you would revert to your old habits! Not one day after our wedding and you are already lecturing me!”

“There was nothing in our vows that forbade me from lecturing you. Only ‘with my body, I thee worship’. And I find this style of worship quite to my tastes.”

Emma pouted at his quip and double-entendre, (even as privately she acknowledged its wit), but she could not deny his logic. After all, her research had warned her that a husband’s manhood could taste somewhat musky and yet the idea of pleasuring him with her mouth was still strangely attractive to her, especially after she had witnessed first hand how wonderful such attentions felt. Oh, if she could make George fall apart in such a way… she had to concede the argument.

“I suppose it may be much the same when I put my mouth upon you. After all, I have read many people find the taste of spunk to be––” Her husband quietly groaned and laid his head against her clavicle.

“Do you not wish me to attempt it, George?”

“I should never outright refuse such an offer, Emma. Though I warn you, if you intend to follow through on it tonight, I won’t have the endurance to consummate our marriage in the truest sense of the word until tomorrow.”

Emma contemplated her options. She certainly wanted to see if what was good for the goose was good for the gander, but she had to confess to feeling greedy. If her conversations with Mrs. Weston and Harriet were to be believed, the marriage act itself could be very pleasurable for her. How could it not be, when her oldest and dearest friend was the one with whom she would be doing it? Much like the Stephanotis behind her ears, putting her mouth on him could wait until tomorrow. But tonight…

“Let us consummate our marriage, George.”

George gave her another of those looks, as if she herself had hung the moon and stars and he was enraptured by her. Even if such adoration did not succeed in taking her breath away his kisses certainly did, as he leaned over and put his mouth on hers and expressed himself more eloquently than he ever could with words. Emma believed he could kiss her thusly for a lifetime and she would never tire of it. He appeared to be much of the same mind and they continued in such a way for several minutes, stopping only so that he might pay further attention to the column of her neck, or so she could kiss a particularly sensitive part of his jawline as his fingers traced patterns along her ribcage.

She could feel her neck beginning to strain after keeping her head turned at such an angle for so long. But she did not wish to stop kissing him. She took her hand and braced it against his shoulder as she pivoted her body and swung one of her legs over his so that she could sit astride his lap and face him head on. She had almost lost her balance in the attempt, but George had kept his hand at her waist and pulled her back towards him. 

George broke their kiss and immediately moved his mouth to her bosom. Prior to this Emma had never felt any particular way about her breasts. She appreciated the way they looked well in the current fashions and she disliked how they became sore every month before her cycles began, but did not spare them much thought otherwise. George was clearly of a different mind on the matter and was doing his level best to rectify her inattention to them.

He licked at the one on his right, flicking his tongue against the hardening peak, and blowing cool air over it before sucking her nipple into his mouth. With his left hand he massaged her other breast, letting the weight of it nestle in his palm, gently squeezing before he gave its nipple a gentle pinch. Then he switched his mouth over and repeated the entire process. Emma had known that her breasts were sensitive, (how her nipples would harden in the cold or when they rubbed against the linen of her shift!) but had they always had such a capacity for pleasure? And how was it possible that even as she felt such a delicious ache in her breasts that a different ache was forming in her nether regions, desire pooling low in her abdomen? Emma had never been described as studious before, but she was quickly amassing enough questions to fill an encyclopedia, and she was determined to find the answers to all of them in due time.

She began to rub herself against one of his thighs, craving something, anything between her legs. George lifted her hips away from his leg, but before she could pout or protest he angled his cock down and shifted her so she might rub against it instead of his thigh. Emma had to commend his ingenuity, for the new position did not require her to chafe the skin of her inner thighs against his leg, but instead his penis nestled against her lips in the most delightful way. They rocked against each other for some time, though Emma could not give an exact number of minutes if asked. 

What she _could_ clearly recall was the moment her husband asked her, “My dearest Emma, are you ready?”

_“Yes…”_

George reached between them, pausing briefly to pet at her slick folds and let his thumb graze her clitoris. But then he gripped his manhood and aligned them. She could feel the very head of him nudging against her entrance. Though she hadn’t previously realized coitus could occur in such a position, her husband clearly believed it was possible and she’d not yet been given any reason to doubt him. In any case she was too eager for it to happen and saw no reason to delay by moving to lay down on her back. As soon as they were aligned Emma let herself sink down onto him, quick enough to satisfy her lust and slow enough to savor the new sensation.

She could feel her body shifting to accommodate him; his prick was already so slick from her ministrations and she was so hungry for him that although it required her muscles to stretch themselves to their limit they did not actually surpass that limit. She felt gloriously _full._ George tilted his head up to kiss her again, one of those kisses that made her feel stupid with how much she loved him and he loved her.

“Are you ready to move, dear Emma?”

“I don’t know how,” she confessed.

“We’ll learn together”, he said.

It was not a simple up-and-down motion like she had thought it would be, like the movement of a butter churn. Instead it was more like a spinning wheel, a constant circle of down-and-forward and up-and-back smoothed out into one continuous motion. Two or three times her hips had accidentally moved too far in their circuit and she moved off of his penis entirely. The first time she was embarrassed but George merely realigned them and helped guide her back down. By the third she had grown bold enough to reach down between them herself and guide his prick back into her depths.

This was not how Emma had envisaged the loss of her virginity. To be fair, she hadn’t envisaged it very much; for so long her intent had been to end her days as an elegant spinster and doting aunt. Then she and George had finally realized their affections and her thoughts had taken a distinctly desirous turn. But her fantasies still relied heavily on her marriage companion, a basic and impersonal account of sexual intimacies, and her friends’ advice which had been relatively vague for propriety’s sake. Her research hadn’t mentioned the wet, squelching, slapping sounds their bodies made as they met again and again–– surely such information should have been mentioned? And how could she have known that it was possible for her to have so much autonomy in this, that rather than her husband taking her it was possible for _her_ to take _her husband?_ How could she have anticipated how much physical exercise would be required on her part, and how could she have predicted how little she minded the exertion or the perspiration dripping down her back and blooming in her armpits? But the best, most wonderful surprise of the whole endeavor was how _tender_ such an act could be. George’s strong hands held her hips as he helped her move on her perch, he would not let her fall. The heat of their bodies made the spicy, woody smell of his cologne become fragrant, like a strange incense to hallow their consummation of the holy vows they had taken just that morning.

“Speak to me, tell me what you’re feeling,” came her husband’s feverish plea.

Emma leaned her forehead against his and said, “It feels so good… I feel full, George. I am so full, you have filled my heart with love and now you have filled my quim with your cock. I, oh...fuck––”

At her cursing George gave a low growl, and shifted forward so he could better plant his feet on the floor and use the leverage to thrust harder up into her. Soon the action of their bodies meeting shifted less from his wife riding his cock and more to him lifting and slamming her back down against him. Emma didn’t resist but moved her mouth to his ear so she could keep whispering filthy nothings to him, pausing only to nip and lick at the salty skin where his shoulder met his neck, leaving a garden of flushed skin in her wake. After a few minutes George shifted one hand to her ribs, roughly leaning her torso away from him.

“Emma, let me see you, please!” 

She knew how she likely looked just then. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and cheeks, her body shiny and damp with sweat, her face cherry red with exertion. But George’s eyes had focused instead on the long line of her neck, the way her breasts swayed and jiggled in rhythm to their thrusts, how her hazel eyes had become so bright, how her wet pink mouth was sighing with pleasure.

“I, Emma, I’m so close, I’m––”

“Do it,” she said. “I want you to feel good, chase after your peak, darling.”

He took his hand from her waist and put his thumb against her open mouth. Without thinking she took it into her mouth, sucking against the callused pad of his digit. Almost as soon as she’d begun he took it out and placed his wet thumb against her clitoris, rubbing in hard, tight, fast circles over its hood. Delight licked its way up her spine, sparking at the edges of her vision. Rough moans made their way out of her throat, her face scrunching up in pleasure. George looked up at her in pure awe, his face a rictus of adoration and rapture as the muscles in his abdomen tightened, his blunt nails digging into the side of her hip.

George stopped his thrusting and laid his head against her clavicle with a soft _thud._ Emma could feel his cock beginning to soften inside her as the walls of her cunt stuttered and fluttered, trying in vain to join her husband in that delicious release of tension. The room was near silent, with only their panting breaths to be heard. 

Eventually they each found their breath, even as they impeded their own progress by taking frequent pauses to kiss each other senseless. Finally George looked at Emma with his brow furrowed over those eyes she imagined were likely the shade of the sea on a sunny day, and she knew what he was going to ask her:

“You did not orgasm a second time, did you not?” She shook her head.

“I was close, but not quite.”

“Would you like me to make you reach your peak again?” he asked.

Emma considered his suggestion. Though she _wanted_ more, she could feel a soreness beginning to make itself known between her legs, the muscles unused to stretching so wide for so long. And then there was the burning in her thighs and her abdomen from all that riding. Now that she was no longer chasing pleasure she was aware of just how much she had put her body through.

“Though I do not wish to refuse such an offer, I believe I am at my limit tonight.” George nodded and kissed her brow, then her cheek, until it turned into a playful barrage of feather-light kisses all over her face.

“Mr. Knightley!” She admonished him, breathless with giggles.

He did not cease his attack but started tickling her as well. “‘Mr. Knightley’? What happened to ‘George’? Is the usage of my Christian name strictly reserved for coitus?”

“Do not tempt me,” she cried, and quickly kissed him so that he might be distracted from tickling her. Her plan worked well, as George kissed her back and she could feel his smile beneath her lips.

After a few more kisses, (what a delight it was to be able to kiss one’s beloved whenever one wished!), each of them got cleaned up for the night. Emma took a cloth to wipe away the stickiness from between her legs and ceded the washbasin to George. She had intended to head straight to the bed but she caught a glimpse of her reflection in her vanity and so drifted over to examine her countenance for some small change. Perhaps it was the marriage act itself that caused the changes in her friends that she had lacked earlier this evening?

Yet when she looked at her face she found no significant difference. She was flushed and bright-eyed from her marital activities, but she was still missing that settledness, that _maturity_ in her expression of which Anne and Harriet could boast.

“What is it, Emma?”

Emma turned to see George sitting in the bed, waiting for her. His chest was still bare, and though it delighted Emma that she could spend the entire night pressed up against him, skin-to-skin, it did not quite quell her anxiety.

“You will think me silly.”

“I would never think you silly. Vain or capricious, yes, but never silly.”

Emma huffed and pouted as she turned away from him, and George realized the scope of her concerns was larger than he had initially assumed.

Chagrined, he called out to her: “Forgive me, my teasing was in poor taste. Come to bed, Emma, and tell me what it is that distresses you.”

“And if it _is_ a vain or capricious thing that distresses me?”

She walked over to the bed and crawled under the covers to sit next to him, and so George held out hope that he hadn’t erred beyond amelioration.

“Then I would like to know it all the same. Even when our opinions and concerns are in total opposition to the other, there is nothing I wish you to hide from me. Indeed, as of yet there is nothing you ever do hide from me. It is one of the qualities I find most endearing about you.”

Emma looked down where she was twisting her coral ring around on her finger before placing both her hands in her lap and looking back at her husband. His face was open and tender, and she knew that he was right: it was not in her nature to keep secrets anymore than it was in his nature to ignore her thoughts on a matter. He would always rather hear her opinions and outright disagree with them than act as though she had none.

She relayed to him the summary of her concerns, finishing her explanation by saying, “If I hadn’t continued to mature and change this past year, we may never have realized the extent of our feelings for each other. What if I continue to stagnate, what if this is the apex of my development?”

His eyes fixed upon her with a look that was wrapped up in warmth and sweetness all at once. For a moment Emma was reminded of the expression on his face after he vowed to remove himself from Donwell Abbey if that was what she required of him. Then he held her hands in his as he replied.

“Though I do not agree that you have _stagnated,_ I will not do you the disservice of pretending that your feelings on the matter are unimportant. I also do not pretend to know what it was that caused the changes in Mrs. Weston’s or Mrs. Martin’s demeanors, nor even that I noticed such a change––after all, for much of my life I was a bachelor and saw no reason to analyze the demeanors of newlyweds. What I do know is that I love you. I have always loved you and I always will, even if you never change from this point on. Nothing you could do, or fail to do, would ever alter that. And if we continue to love each other surely there is nothing that we cannot face together?”

Emma felt her eyes begin to water and her lip tremble. George furrowed his brow in concern and opened his mouth to ask what he had said that distressed her, but Emma had flung her arms around him before he could speak.

“And you said you could not make speeches!” George could feel his heart ache with sheer adoration of the woman in his arms, hiccuping with laughter and happy tears.

Soon they dissolved into the enjoyable conversation and playfulness they had always known. Emma explained how she never took off her rings even for sleep, that her hands felt naked without them. George divulged the story behind the faint scars on his cheek, (an incident while climbing a tree in Donwell’s orchards when he was fourteen). Then he enlightened his wife to the remarkable and extensive collection of erotic literature in Donwell’s library. After discussing this the newlyweds found a second wind and did not fall asleep until well after midnight. And when Emma finally completed her toilette the next morning, she did not examine her visage in the mirror and find it lacking––she simply made a mental note to call on Mrs. Weston that day and ask for any advice she might have on making a matronly lace cap look fashionable. 

(And possibly to ask for her best recommendations for hiding lovebites on one’s décolletage when evening came and a chemisette was no longer so inconspicuous.)

**Author's Note:**

> When you read a lot of fanfiction, ESPECIALLY historical fanfiction, you end up reading a lot of loss-of-virginity stories and seeing the same tropes over and over again. I don't have anything against those tropes per say, but after a while I was getting frustrated with the lack of variation. And because most of us like to read & write fics as an escape, they're always very idealized and don't often contain the messy, silly, awkward parts of sex. Which is a shame, because those are some of the best parts!
> 
> SO, since I adore this story and its most recent adaptation has inspired us all to get a-typing on our keyboards, I thought I'd write the kind of loss-of-virginity fic that *I* wanted to read: romantic and sweet and messy. Because sometimes you want to cum again but your body won't let you, and sometimes you almost lose your balance when maneuvering, and sometimes you and your partner don't cum practically at the same time, and why is it that no one ever mentions the labia in fanfiction, and––
> 
> I have a special place in my hearts for all those fics. Here's my take on it. I've definitely been inspired by other writers in the fandom, particularly MostPreciousTreasures and their extensive historical research. I thought I was no slouch at it, but then I read their fics and had to include Stephanotis as Emma's perfume ;)
> 
> Let me know what you guys think! It's been a hot minute since I've posted anything other than a comment on this site, let alone something this long, and I hope you all like it <3


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